The Amsterdam

My incoming flight was long and overall horrible.

It started off with Tommy and Chuck missing their connecting flights because of delay at Heathrow. I myself had to run to get my connect on EasyJet. The only way I got on was by pleading with the supervisor. It worked out well. But it was extra to have to deal with people that way. Britains want to help you. Aren't proad of it nessarily. But will help you in a bind.

I ran to the Flight from Amsterdam. On the way over it dawned on me that we were late. And my connection was soon. Strange airport. foreign land. different culture. I raced through that airport. I located were to get my ticket and there was no liine. I might make this afterall.

I got to the check-in and heard the news. The flight had closed three minutes earlier.

Huffing and puffing, I got to the gate and finally onboard. I snoozed the whole way. The same as I did on the flight over. I go into that later. Some flight.

I arriving in Amsterdam (A) on time - ten minutes of 1:00 . It was very easy and clear through the airport. I just loved finding the 'carraiges' for luggage. I had discovered that Tommy's original flight was scedule to arrive in 3:00 minutes. The airport will be our rendevous.

I waited and they didn't show. The carraige was empty, with the clerk gathering bags that didn't connect with their owners. Kind of like that mystery black sock that comes out of the washer occasionally.

I resigned they weren't coming. Decided to proceed to the Rendevous. Our rendevous location was maken in haste moments before we both boarded our respective flights.

I needed to go to Centraal terminal. Went through customs. commuted. found the train. Get to A Centrall roughly 2:00. I lockered my luggage. and was offf to Caffe Espirit.

It was supposed to be 250 yards from the bus station. It ended up being about 2.5 kimoeteres. All urban, mind you. Still.

Street names didn't jump out at you. Long story short - I got there. Somewhat confusing since I came up the street on the side of the Espirt store. The cafe was on the other side. Took my 40 minutes to figure that out.

I waited. Nothing. Do I stay here? Leave? What if they show up? Tag in a foreign city.

Before we left I had told him to rely on email. Interent isn't everywhere here, but there are internet cafes.

I checked my email. Got a message from Tom he'd be late. Phew!!!! Then I did some work. Emailed Erin. Fixed Kirk's problem. Checked Academy Email.

I estimate that I had about an hour and half to they would mostlikely arrive. Got something to eat. And wanted to get back in the vacinity of the rendevous.

Checked some stuff out but not really too much. Just wanted to meet.

They finally arrived. 7:00 pm. I found them. They were with a bum.

We decided to get a hotel. We were all bunk from traveling.

Let's just say getting the hotel was an experience. Tommy had the idea of going to one of those Hotel Infor places. They are wheelers ans dealers.

We ended up getting a nice room. It was small. Modern. Secure. Perfect hotel. We checked in. Arranged the room. All showered. And decided to check out the redlight district.

The Redlight District.

Chuck wanted a beer. Tommy and I wanted to get stoned. Finding a place to do so turned out to be quite an adventure. Hemp isn't plastered everywhere. Actually no where. It's in the district, but we were amatuars. We ended up at a place called the Grasshopper. Upstair a night club. Downstairs a coffee shop. When we asked, we needed to be directed. That's how non-obvious it was. Atleast it seemed.

They didn't have menues here. We missed it on our way in. You had to press a button to see the 'menu'' We considered our options. Cannabis and hash. Various prices. I didn't know what to get.

Tommy chose one from the list and went first. A short dialogus ensued. I went next. Not knowing I asked the purveyor for a suggestion.

"Mild or strong"

"Strong"

"Grey Hazel Red"

"Fine. Gimmie two grams.'.

Anyways, we had to role a joint. None of us had the skills. Chuck gave a valient inital attempt. Then Tommy. I failed too. We ended up quering the waitress. We bought a pack of these cone type things. They worked perfectly.

Tweaked, we ventured out to see more the redlight district. We happened upon a place and bought a couple of rounds of beers. It started to kick in. Who knows where we were. We ended up leaving for more fun. Crazy thoughts were going through my mind. Then again, its the first time I had partook in a while.

Overall, It its a very interesting place. Something I did not know existed. Probably the best scene of it's type I have ever been too. There were hundreds of extremly small cafes and lounges. Eateries. Cafe's. Clothing. All there. What was the most fascinating, however, is that some

Very interesting place. It's crazy because if you need it to be or mellow it is, if your more the observant type, you can do that too. I felt our group represented all of this. Actions confirmed my suspicions.

James Brown - An American Originnal.

As Tommy so pointed out: Sixty years of funkk.

To put it mildy, it was some show. Never had been in a venue like that before. The bar was right in the main performance hall. It was rockin. Tommy was the only person wearing sunglasses.

He didn't play for that long - about 90 minutes. It get's progressively fuzzy. I remember the end. Getting lost. Part of the ride home, and then this:

Under the influence of some concoction, I came back an keyed this in. It's rambling, twisted and somewhat censored. What happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam. . I was having a grand ole time...

<---Deleted and Censored----Sorry:< >

Berlin Train

This is very interesting experince. I am on the train to Berlin. We were initially supposed to go to Bremmen, but missed the train by about five minutes. We himmed and haughed on buying tickets for 55Euro. Things are very expensive in Amsterdam.

We had heard that the train is laidback as far as souveniers from Amsterdam. If you know what I mean.. We have a little bit on us and I'm wigging.

We know that its only a fine when b eing caught. It supposedly is not worse than that. We have stoped now and am waiting for something.

I was nervous earlier. T & C have the ball. I am just thinking. I hope it isn't a hassle. We had asked around

The whole train trip to Berlin went pretty smoothly, although I didn't really have a seat. Getting over the border was really a problem. The Police just walked through the train and spot checked. Tommy and Chuck drank bottles of wine. We played cards and sat in between cars . I was the first one without a seat. Tommy and Chuck later joined me when they got booted.

In Berlin, we got off at the Zool-somethig and walked to bit. We needed to find Propeller Island City Lodge. Tommy has supposedly made a reseavatin. Chuck knew where it was from the map.

We found it but never got to stay there. There was no reception and the hotel had been converted from an apartment building. It would of been cool, but was sort of fucked up. We needed to fin d a hotel room.. Dojing so was an adverture.

We eventually found a place called the Park Inn at AlexanderPlace. We stayed there to nigghts..
Aftern we dropped our shit off,, they wanted to find a nightclub. I needed some food. It was late. this had been the worse day of the trip. Traveling sucked.

We happened upon a small nightclub and went in. Very young crowd. Much American music. I took off and got some food.

We got up the next morning around 11:00 am. We decided to stay another nite. We took the subway to go to see the Brandberg Gate and some other sites. Chuck really had everything mapped up.

After the subway we walked and got our first site of the Berlin Wall. Parts of it were restored others original. Chuck wanted to get a rock from the wall for his rock collection. I pounded on the wall witth a piece of robar to get my chunck.

We then decided to try to find a new camera. We found a shopping center and maill. I got something to eat and looked at the shops . We found an electronics stores and found Tommy a camera. They did not take Visa so Tommy and Chcuk withdrew cash to cover the purchase.

We left the mall and caught some more sites. We stopped to eat and plug in Tommy's camera to charge it so he could use it. I ost $5E in a casino that was acrss the street.

Live 8 was playing in Berlin and we decided to go check it out. It turned ouit to be really fun. There were thousands of people. We had beers, shot photos and listened to music. I even hackey-sacked with some European dudes.

Walking out of Live 8 we took a bunch of photos of the Brandonberg Gate and some other stuff along the way. It was getting dark out, so my digital camera could only do so much. One of the sites was what Chuck was referrring to as the 'Death Star' Got to see it up close and personl.

During all of this time, my left Achilles had been killingg me. I had never had this happen to me. I felt that I was getting old.. I wan't looking forward to anymore walking.

We go back to the hotel and I immejdiately crashed. My achilles was killing me.

To Copenhagen

We got up at around 10:30 am. Me earliest. Our mision was to find a car rental agency to get to Copenhagen. I found Sixt Car Rental. They turned out to be the cheapest. My achilles was still sore, but a bit better.

We found Sixt pretty easily by taking the metro. Chuck drove. Our goal was to drive to Copenhagen via the Autobon. The autobon stretches through the German countryside much like I 40 does. What is interesting is how fast everybody goes. The speeds ranged from about 60 MPH to well into the 100s. We had rented a Volkwagen Polo. It was very similar to a Golf and he had it going about 96 MPH. Some cars were passing us going maybe 125 - 150 MPH. It was an interesting experience.

Our drive was pretty uneventful. The route was very well marked and easy to follow. We got a chance to drive through Hamburg, Germany for a bit. since it was Sunday, however, many things were closed.

What really shocking on the trip up the Autobon was the price of gas. They had it displayed in liters. It turned out costing me approximately about $70US to fill the tank. We argued if the price was correct. Was this for reall? It was an unexpected expense....

Our next unexpected expense was the ferry. We had to get a connection from Germany to Denmark. The only way on the route we chose. Turned out costing us about $65US to cross. It was a 45 minute ride. You get out of your car after you park. Upstairs on the deck there are shops, a caffe and shit like that. Sort of like a mini airport concourse. There was a duty free shop. We went outside on the deck and got some pictures of the ferry.

Aftter almost not finding the car, Copenhagen was about another 35-40 minutes, maybe less. We got into the city center at around 10:30. The sun was just starting to set. We drove around for awhile and checked the prices of about 10 hotels. After even considering a hostel (turned out it was full) we decided on the Best Western Quality Inn. We discovered that when we arrived, the summer season is always very crowded. Several hotels we checked we're booked solid. Our hotel had free web-access, a big room and was pretty cheap. Overall, this room was the most convenient of the whole trip. Our Berlin hotel was nicer, but not as convenient.

We finally got into our room about 12:30 am. Tommy and Chuck went out to a nightclub and I decided to stick around the hotel to write my paper. It was due in a few hours and I had Internet access... I never completed the paper because there was no USB port on the machine that I saw. It was the first paper in the IMC program that I had been late on.. Things about money were on my mind, so was Erin and I just crashed.

I had trouble falling asleep, but eventually did. As I tossed and turned waiting to fall asleep, I notice the sunrise out the hotel window. What was cool is that it was only 4:30 am.

The next day I got up about 10:30. I showered and got breakfast on the street and walked around myself a bit. The hotel was pretty busy with people coming and going. Checking in and out. Tommy and Chuck got up in the early afternoon. Tommy's goal was to find and laundrymat. We asked around and jumped in the car and found one. Tommy did his laundry and planned to me us back later in the day. chuck and I took the car and decided to go see the famous little mermaid and some famous castle. The car made it easier. I drove the whole day. We eventually went back to the hotel room and parked the car. We walked around the city for another few hours, taking the train, taking a lot of photos, and grabbing dinner.

We found Copenhagen to be very expensive. A simpl cup of coffee - served in an espresso cup -- was like $4.00 US. Chuck and I's simple bufffet of pizza and salad cost us over $40 US. Everything else was proportional.

We met Tommy back in the room around 7:30 pm and decided to venture out again to some other parts of the centrum. Many of the streets resembled Amsterdam very closely, but didn't have as much 'grit'. Copenhagen is absolutely beautiful. I tried to take as many pictures as possible.

We did that until the sunset and returned to the room at about 11:15 pm. I knew that I had a flight to catch the next day, We ended up hanging out in the hotel room for awhile, smoking, talking shit, life. I made sure I was ready to get out of there early the next day.

Travel Day
Getting to the airport was a breeze. I checked in easiliy and went to my gate. I had purposedly tried to tire myself for the flights back to the US.

What's interesting is that the community in which in is located has a fair amount of other homes renting as well. Supposedly, investors purchased a number of the units before the builder changed the terms a bit to fend them off (or so I am told). The pricing on the units given its location was extremely generous. In any event, this is my first experience as a landlord. All still goes well.